ught in winds and currents
and continual tempests, though in spite of these great dangers they
accomplished by the aid of this wind two hundred and forty leagues.
The north star was no longer to be seen. They are in contradiction
with the ancient poets, philosophers, and cosmographers over the
question whether that portion of the world on the equinoctial line
is or is not an inaccessible desert. The Spaniards affirm that it is
inhabited by numerous peoples,[3] while the ancient writers maintain
that it is uninhabitable because of the perpendicular rays of the sun.
I must admit, however, that even amongst ancient authorities some have
been found who sought to maintain that that part of the world was
habitable.[4] When I asked the sailors of the Pinzons if they had seen
the polar star to the south, they said that they had seen no star
resembling the polar star of our hemisphere, but they did see entirely
different stars,[5] and hanging on the higher horizon a thick sort of
vapour which shut off the view. They believe that the middle part
of the globe rises to a ridge,[6] and that the antarctic star is
perceptible after that elevation is passed. At all events they have
seen constellations entirely different from those of our hemisphere.
Such is their story, which I give you as they told it. _Davi sunt, non
Oedipi_.[7]

[Note 2: Meaning the Canaries in which the ancients placed the
Garden of the Hesperides. From them Ptolemy began to reckon longitude.
The names Hesperia, Hesperides, Hesperus, etc., were used to indicate
the west; thus Italy is spoken of by Macrobius: _illi nam scilicet
Graeci a stella Hespero dicunt Venus et Hesperia Italia quae occasui
sit_; Saturnalium, lib. i., cap. iii. Ptolemy likewise says: _Italia
Hesperia ab Hespero Stella quod illius occasui subjecta sit_, and
again in his _Historia tripartita_, lib. viii: _Quum Valentinianus
Imperator as oras Hesperias navigaret, id est ad Italiam, et
Hispaniam_. Elsewhere the same author mentions the islands off the
west coast of Africa, of which he received some vague information as:
_Incognitam terram qui communi vocabulo Hesperi appellantur Ethiopes_.
Pliny, Strabo, in the last chapter _De Situ Orbis_, Diodorus, and
others make similar usage of the terms. St. Anselm, _De Imagine
Mundi_, lib. i., cap. xx., _Juxta has, scilicet Gorgonas Hesperidum
ortus_; Pomponius Mela, lib. iii. cap. ix., x., xi.]

[Note 3: The sub-equatorial regions of Africa had already be